"I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes taken a
view which I don't agree with very well. He’ll hold up a
flower and say, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree, I
think. And he says—“you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful
this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and
it becomes a dull thing.” And I think that he’s kind of nutty.
First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people
and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite
as refined aesthetically as he is; but I can appreciate the
beauty of a flower. At the same time I see much more about
the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the
complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean
it’s not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter, there
is also beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure.
Also the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower
evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting-it
means that insects can see the color. It adds a question:
Does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms?
Why is it aesthetic? All kinds o f interesting questions which
shows that a science knowledge only adds to the excitement
and mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand
how it subtracts." - Richard Feynman, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out"